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DISCUSSION
D. A. Greenwood, Geotechnical Consulting Group (formerly spherical particle that can pass through, for dense and loose
Cementation Piling & Foundations Ltd) packing, is, from geometry, respectively 0.155 and 0.414 of
Congratulations to the authors on putting some science to the soil particle diameter. Hence, to allow cement to pass
a hitherto largely empirical domain. It has been long over- without filtration, all the particles in the soil must be larger
due. than 0.25–0.65 mm. Accounting for tortuosity of the flow
However, while I agree that their seepage model is passages and the irregular shapes of particles, it is found
relevant to very pervious soils, I question whether it is so empirically that the soil particles must all be larger than
for sandy gravels, or indeed for any soil containing sands or 1 mm for cement to pass freely in very dilute suspensions.
finer particles in quantities sufficient to fill the voids be- Further, it can be shown by calculation (Greenwood,
tween successively coarser particles. The seepage model 1997) and experimentally (Arenzana et al., 1989) that only
describes flow by permeation into the soils outside the jetted about 3–5 l of grout (at a water/cement ratio of 0.7–1.0) per
borehole walls. This implies an undisturbed soil structure in m2 of borehole wall needs to flow into the ground before
this region until the erosion model is valid. Since the soil– blockage occurs. This is a very small proportion of that
cement fluid in the jetted borehole comprises a suspension injected via the jet at 120 l/min.
of particles, these must be able to pass through the soil Concerning the limit on grout penetration due to internal
voids unhindered for seepage penetration. Mechanisms that shear, to reach the jetted column radius R, the limiting
would prevent this are particle filtration and internal fric- average pressure gradient P/R ¼ 2S/a, where P is the applied
tional shearing in the mobile fluid: the former would vir- pressure, S is the internal shear resistance of the fluid when
tually preclude permeation, and the latter would limit its flow stops (i.e. the yield stress), and a is the equivalent
extent. radius of the average pore (Raffle & Greenwood, 1961). For
There are very few natural soils comprising sand-free an OP cement grout of water /cement ratio 1.0, as used at
gravels, and these are usually associated with mountain Polcevera, the yield stress (strength) is about 0.5 N/m2 , so
torrents in which, locally, the flow velocities and volumes the pressure needed to reach the measured column radii is
are sufficient to segregate the gravels from the sands and less than 6 kPa. Thus it is unlikely that shear resistance in
fines, which are washed away leaving a gravel structure with the grout would have limited flow to as little as the radii
particles in mutual contact. In most gravels the sand content observed under the hydrostatic pressures in the borehole,
is more than sufficient to fill the voids between gravel-sized even without the momentary transient excess jet pressures.
particles, so that their permeabilities and maximum pore I suggest, therefore, that the Polcevera soil was at or
dimensions are controlled by the sand and any finer grains below the limits of penetrability due to filtration of cement
contained within it. or soil particles, and most probably suffered significant
The authors have chosen to verify their seepage model by blockage of soil pores at the borehole wall. I suspect that
reference to fieldwork with mono-fluid jetting at Polcevera, the results observed were more likely to have been by
as reported by Croce et al. (1994). This reference describes erosion of the fines, leaving a gravel structure coarse enough
the gravel as a heterogeneous alluvial deposit. The granulo- to allow penetration until ‘shadowing’ of the jet limited
metry shows a well-graded gravel with D10 size from 2 mm further erosion. This soil was at best borderline for the
to about 0.2 mm and maximum sizes of 60 mm to 200 mm. application of the seepage model. This does not imply that
The uniformity coefficient D60 /D10 is 50. This is not a the model is wrong; on the contrary, this theory is a signifi-
uniform material. cant advance. It is the verification of the seepage model that
The authors have estimated the porosity of the Polcevera is unconvincing. In my view the seepage model will be only
gravel at 30%, and have used the Hazen equation for very rarely applicable in general.
estimating its permeability. This implies that it was a uni-
form gravel. Their estimation of its permeability from 0.5 to Authors’ response
4 cm/s suggests an average equivalent pore diameter of The authors thank Dr Greenwood for providing the contribu-
about 0.26–0.76 mm (Raffle & Greenwood, 1961) and a tion of his long-lasting experience to their attempt at model-
corresponding D10 size of about 0.9–2.5 mm (Greenwood, ling jet grouting. In general the authors agree on the fact
1997). This result tends to confirm my impression that the that gravelly soils are not found very often, and thus the
authors have overestimated both the porosity and the per- erosion models are more relevant for the majority of prac-
meability of the Polcevera gravels and, implicitly, the related tical applications.
pore sizes also. In recent years, however, alluvial and fluvio-glacial depos-
As a consequence, it is unlikely that the soil–cement its made of coarse-grained materials have been encountered
suspension in the jetted borehole would be able to penetrate in several large highway and railway projects crossing the
as far as they suggest by permeation in that soil. Alps and the Apennines, where extensive jet grouting treat-
The coarsest particles in ordinary Portland cements are ments were carried out. Observations retrieved from these
just over 0.1 mm in diameter, and the turbulence in the projects could be useful in similar geomorphological envir-
jetted bore can suspend silt and sand particles somewhat onments.
larger. The soil pore dimensions must be larger still if By comparing such case histories Croce & Flora (2000)
filtration with pore blockage is to be avoided. In an idealised concluded that, for gravelly soils, jet columns are produced
soil of uniform spherical particles the maximum size of by soil permeation rather than by mixing. Indeed, similar
533
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534 DISCUSSION
findings had previously been reported by other authors
(Miki, 1985; Bell, 1993a), who observed that, in the case of
gravel, the grout flows thorough the soil pores without
destroying the structure of the soil skeleton.
The point raised by Dr Greenwood is that grout permea-
tion would not be possible for a sandy gravel deposit, such
as the one considered by the authors for verifying the
applicability of the seepage model. This opinion is based
mainly on the results of experimental investigations on
permeation grouting and subsequent theoretical analyses.
Unfortunately, the mechanical phenomena induced by jet
grouting have been reproduced in the laboratory only for
fine sands and clays (Dabbagh et al., 2002), and not for
coarse-grained soils. Therefore experimental research on
these latter has been restricted to field inspection of the jet
column features, and laboratory investigations of Soilcrete
samples recovered after treatment. In particular, detailed
observations came from the case study of the Fadalto
viaduct, located across a valley of the eastern Italian Alps
(Croce et al., 1990; Mongiovı̀ et al., 1991), where the
subsoil is composed of an alternation of clean gravel and
sandy gravel strata, parallel to the sloping ground. It was
found by direct inspection (Fig. 16) that permeation is the Fig. 16. Field observation of grouted clean gravel and sandy
dominant mechanism for both material types, with the only gravels strata after treatment at Fadalto
difference being that grout flows into clean gravel without
completely filling the soil pores, whereas a more closed
structure is observed in grouted sandy gravel, owing to the possible for a gap-graded soil, but only for limited distances
presence of the sand grains. from the monitor (the observed column radii ranged between
Unfortunately, in the Fadalto case, the treatments were 30 and 70 cm).
performed close to each other in order to obtain a large In general, the authors consider that the results of experi-
continuous body of cemented material, and thus column mental studies on permeation grouting cannot be readily
diameters could not be measured. It was thus decided to extended to jet grouting, owing to the very different specific
verify the permeation model by comparison with the results energies, velocities and times of treatment associated with
obtained at Polcevera, where several diameter measurements the two techniques. As an example, in the grouting experi-
were available (Croce et al., 1994). ments performed by Arenzana et al. (1989), the applied
The granulometric distributions of sandy gravel at Fadalto hydraulic head was less than 5 m, whereas the hydraulic
and Polcevera are very similar, as can be seen in Fig. 17 head calculated at the borehole wall during injection at
(Croce et al., 1994). The only difference is that the Polce- Polcevera is more than 500 m. It seems logical that, for a
vera deposit is more heterogeneous, and this explains the given soil and grout, the filtration mechanism with pore
large observed scattering of jet column diameters. It can be blockage is more likely to occur for permeation grouting
inferred, however, that permeation was also the dominant than for jet grouting.
mechanism in the Polcevera case. In fact, an erosion However, even considering the granulometric rules of con-
mechanism of the sand grains without remoulding the gravel ventional grouting, it is found that the Polcevera sandy
skeleton, as supposed by Dr Greenwood, is unlikely to occur gravel falls within the limits of cement penetration. In fact
for the well-graded material of Polcevera. It might be Bell (1993b) suggests a lower limit of 0.87 mm for D15 of
90
.
80
70
Passing by weight: %
60
50
40
30
Fadalto
20
10 Polcevera
0
1000 100 10 1 0·1
Diameter: mm
Fig. 17. Grain size distributions of Fadalto and Polcevera sandy gravels (from Croce et al.,
1994)